


Things Unseen

by auntieshakespeare



Category: The Incredibles (2004)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, i made myself so sad, why did I write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 05:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14993885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auntieshakespeare/pseuds/auntieshakespeare
Summary: In which "I never look back darling, it distracts from the now" is one hell of a coping mechanism.(OR, a character study based on the premise of Edna Mode being a super with precognition.)





	Things Unseen

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a tumblr post that made the rounds a few months ago positing that Edna Mode is secretly a super. I straight up just copy-pasted this from where I wrote it on tumblr because??? I dunno, I thought it turned out pretty good. Enjoy?

Precognition, Edna supposes, is what the government considers her most valuable and dangerous asset. They’re not wrong, but they’re not exactly right either. Nothing is set in stone and while Edna can forsee that Stratogale is going to need a well insulated suit and some high quality, strong holding hair spray (the child insists on flying everywhere like the little birds she chirps about in her civilian life), she cannot see that Gamma Jack is going to threaten her until moments before it happens. 

Visions are strongest, clearest when they involve behaviors and opportunities that occur with frequency. Before her life becomes a deeply guarded secret funded by G-Men she has endless visions of piercing her fingers with sewing needles, of lingering gazes of female models in her figure drawing class, of men with unremarkable faces and ill-tailored suits following her from the store. 

So she’s completely blindsided when she wakes one night to find a man in her apartment, idly flipping through her drawing pad. That he offers her a job designing clothes for other people like her (Supers, he called them in that low, droning voice) is hardly a comfort. She never saw this coming. How could she miss something so monumental?

It nags at her over the years, the thought catching her in moments when she’s alone with her thoughts and the steady buzz of a sewing machine. But she has a job to do and Edna is nothing if she’s not professional. So she makes suits that stretch, suits that shrink, gel that can hold hair in perfect curls despite submersion in water or exposure to extreme winds. But more than the tech aspects of it all, she designs looks.

Edna Mode is an artist. Mr. Incredible is broad and muscular, but quietly self-concious about his bulk, she his suit is designed to draw attention away from his muscles and towards his face. Everseer’s suit is easy to sterilize and wicks away moisture, a must have for the germaphobe, but is also centered with a symmetrical design that exudes a sense of peace the man has never truly had. 

And then there’s the capes. Impractical, yes, but so regal. Not every Super gets one, aesthetics being an important factor in the designing process–Frozone, for example, would look held back by a cape flowing behind him as he glides. So she gives capes to Supers who fly, the long billowing fabric accentuating the graceful stretch of their bodies in flight. (Thunderhead also gets a cape simply because without one he looks like an oversized infant in a fabulously designed Halloween costume.)

Through the years Edna improves her designs with common sense and vision. Macroburst longs for perfect androgyny, so Edna pads what needs to be padded and binds what needs to be bound–it’s common sense and common decency. But Elastigirl is always overstretching herself, so Edna is constantly dreaming of new suits to be made and of ways to keep her friend from dropping from sheer exhaustion. It’s vision and Vision, a daring to dream bigger and a gift to do so.

(When she hears about Stratogale she weeps, collapsing into her favorite armchair and sobbing until she thinks she may die of it. Wishes that she would. She was in the process of designing Stratogale’s prom dress and now she’ll never wear it because Edna’s gift is no gift at all. What’s the point in seeing the future if it only brings clarity to the things you already know?)

Yes, Edna Mode can see the future, but that’s not what makes her dangerous. What she can’t see is far worse.


End file.
